Crysis: Precursory
by FF-Syk
Summary: 20 years before the original Crysis, follow the father of Prophet as he creates the prototype nanosuit and is forced to become it's field tester. Without the technology of 2020, it doesn't even have a cloak. Rated T mostly for the Language. CRYSIS RULES!
1. Creating a Body

Chapter 1: Creating a Body

It was nearly finished. The schedule noted that anyway, as the monitor of an office flickered off, shut down for the night. Out of the room walked several men, a team of engineers. As each said their goodbyes and packed up to return home, there was a strange sense of presence, of consciousness, in the work they left behind. It's rigid humanoid form was eerily alive in the dark, and it seemed emotionless and unhesitant. It was as if when you left the room it could take it's own existence into it's control, and perform mischief and destruction. Purely metal with no fibers, it nonetheless twisted and compressed like soft sheet. Although it was already intimidating enough on the outside, what lied within was far more overwhelming.

Trillions of nanoscopic machines, made out femtoscopic gears and circuits, swarming over each other. Each one only slightly larger than a single cell, they would become a powerful energy, an army at the command of one man to power forward through any opposing force and to bolster him with strength to victory. I speak of a prototype, of a full body powered armor. The original nanosuit.

Truly the work of a genius, in such times of simplicity and sloth, but still incomplete. And there was still no guarantee that it would even perform as designed. But, for now, that was not the primary concern of its builders. Their only worry was what was demanded of them, which in this case was their deadline. Not a few years ago, a small territorial war had broken out between small parts of Asia and the East Coast of North America, as the two continents grew closer together from drift. The two borders converged and there was an argument over what area was controlled by who. After some unfortunate turns of events, violence was turned to in order to solve the problem.

The nanosuit in this war was much like the nuclear missile during the Cold War. It was an item of deterrence, with one small difference: only one faction had the technology. After it was finished and tested, the nanosuit had been licensed to be mass produced and become standard issue to all soldiers. Such changes in skill and limiting factors would surely tip the scales in favor of North America, hoped the government. But now is not the time to explain that. Now is the time to tell the story of it's creator, it's tester, and at the same time, it's sole user.

As noted before, it was created by a team of 7 or 8 men; the exact number is not critical. One of them, it's main designer and also routine programmer, is our protagonist. Calmly standing next to his car, (it was a 1994 BMW, and a bit clunky), Jeffery Barnes lit a cigarette, and held his cupped hand around it to keep it lit. It was turning winter, and the winds were picking up. After so many days on the same project, he felt like a routine had been razored onto his scalp: Get up, go to building, get coffee, work on suit, program suit, piece together suit, go home, pass out. He was growing tired of his job, but was happy he would be able to finish soon, and then get the money from the military licensing.

As he came home, he was still working, even if he didn't need to: his cell phone was out, and he was planning.

"We need to find a quicker way to transport energy to different functions. The copper wiring isn't fast enough for a combat situation."

"What do we have that's faster? Nothing!" said his colleague.

"It's almost a complete failure if it can't convert in less than 5 seconds. We currently calculated it running at 30. It will never stand up."

"But we're already working to death on the armor mode. We can't just switch now, it would leave the scales out of proportion, and there wouldn't be enough power left for speed and strength."

"Then whittle down the armor mode. Just leave it at bulletproof. No ones ever going to need to survive a tank round. After the extra power is dropped, then just balance it out from there."

"This just won't fit in our work schedule."

"Look, Morris, this needs to be finished in 2 weeks. Until then I control this project. You need to adjust the power, and speed up the conversion process. You think you have problems now? Wait'll you see what will happen when we hand in a worthless nanosuit. You ever hand in work that your teacher wasn't satisfied with?"

"Not often. But yeah."

"Take that frustration, and plant it on top of someone who has the authority to put you out of a job."

"Crap."

"I know. I'll have to call you later. I have family matters."

"Bye. I'll see you at 9:00 tomorrow."

Jeffery's "family matters" were primarily non-existent. He lived in a small suburb in Maryland, and didn't often had to worry about other things. His son, Laurence, was about 18 years old and rarely in the house when he came home, and his wife, Andrea, had died nearly 3 years ago after an extended stint in the hospital, due to horrible pneumonia. It gave this feeling of singularity, and he would often just sit down outside and think about his life. Looking around at the calm of the evening, one would have never guessed that there was a war zone all over the Pacific Ocean. Everything just ran business as normal. At the end of the night, there was intense quiet and everything slumbered.

A month later, it was time for base testing. This meant that the suit alone would be put up against different forces and forcibly controlled. It was not yet proven if it was safe enough for human trial. Behind a safe plate of double layer plexiglass, Jeffery and his engineering team were ready to begin. A red light went up, to ensure everyone knew. Leaning back, the team watched as their suit easily stood up against their many tolls. It stood completely motionless, propped up on a metal stand, and remained so while weights were dropped on it, countless rounds of ammunition were fired upon it, and various extreme temperatures were laid out around it.

All the charts seemed to show nominal performance: internal tempurature, damage control from the nanobots AI, resistance, inertia, opposing force, and friction. The graphs went up, and the mathematical information was shown to perfectly run. This did not guarantee anything, however, about more objective aspects. That part of testing would be far more meticulous. The video feeds from outside the suit, at different angles, the vision from inside the visor, and the varying body pieces of it had to be gone over and every possible detail had to be marked. In all the chatter, one could barely make out the individual sentences: "Too much pressure on the legs", "The neck area is not resistant enough", "We can't cover every square inch, maybe if we reconsidered the layout".

It was a mess of remaining factors to cover, and it meant bad news. It meant that there was more configuration to be done, (in this case lots more), and then the deadline might not be met. Jeffery was getting stressed beyond belief, and was worrying himself to the point of a stroke. There was so much to add to the pressure: if he could not finish the suit, the consequences would be dire. He had been planning for a while to be able to use his salary bonus for good intention, and now he was already starting to get low on his funding. He was also thinking about what would happen if the suit was not good enough. If the government was depending on it too much to win the war, then not enough work would be put into other defenses, and his suit would be useless.

There was also the simple fact that he thought there should be more to it, as he only had found how to increase physical performance, but no other uses, such as power charging, radio signaling, tracking, radar, or any form of stealth options. So many problems were going through his mind, he didn't notice his good friend, Andrew Riley, beckoning him to come and look at something.

"JEFF! Listen to me when I'm talking to you! I need your opinion on this."

Barnes quickly snapped back to reality, and walked across the room to him.

"What's the matter?" He asked. "Is there a system malfunction?"

Andrew replied, "No, it's more of a physical shortcoming. Look at this video here. It was taken from inside the nanosuit. I've brightened it up a bit to highlight the fault."

The clip was looking at an upwards angle, to the chest area of the nanosuit. The caption at the top noted that it was taken during the ammunition and explosives test. The sound of ricocheting bullets and grenade combustions could be faintly heard.

"Look. Right there, at the center of the chest. Do you see the bumps?"

"What?" Jeffery replied. "What bumps? There's nothing."

"I'll slow it down for you. 8 times should make it pretty clear."

The clip slowed down immensely, and it was now easy to see that as the bullets impacted, they were pushing in sections of the suit, and then reverting back, like rubber. The stretching only happened for a few fractions of a section, but it was there.

"Well, now you can see. The impact is not being stopped. It's simply being reflected. That means that the user will still feel the impact. That makes our armor mode nearly worthless."

"But there's nothing inside the suit to stop the impact. Maybe if we put a human body in there, the added mass will suppress the damage."

"You wanna be in there and try it? Be my guest. So unless you want to send it in unfinished, with just theories to comfort us, I suggest you fix it. But, I can probably get the rest of the team started on it. You have a higher priority over this piece of metal. You're losing your head over this project, and I can tell you need a break."

"You can really tell?" Jeffery was almost embarrassed by the statement. It would seem unprofessional to his colleagues if he fell apart while working.

"Oh, it's difficult, believe me. There are only small things that give it away. But you have to remember I was sitting next to you the whole time during math in junior college. You always got nervous then."

"Math never was my strong suit. Why do you think I switched to science? That was what I was good at."

"And if people don't believe you, you shove your MiT diploma in their face. I don't need that. What you need is to relax a little bit. Just take a day off tomorrow, and we'll take care of this. In fact, just head out tonight, and get some dinner at a nice place. Bring your son if you want."

"I don't think Laurence will want to come. He's not so concerned with me anymore. He has his own life. I can't say I'm satisfied with everything he does, though."

"No parent can."

By the end of the day, as usual, Jeffery was exhausted as he drove home. He thought about Andrew's last comment to him. It had never occurred to him that he had to like what his son did. He always assumed that a person's primary goal was to make their parents happy, along with themselves, so that their work would be awarded. But instead he began thinking. Maybe it was simple but he had tried to complicate it to give himself more understanding.

As he thought, he also ran his mind over the differences he and Laurence had in their approach to succeeding. Whereas he was compiled and organized, Laurence preferred to fly by the seat of his pants. Once, Jeffery had decided to watch Laurence do an essay, to observe his method, and found that he simply wrote one draft, with no changes, as if he had already written out whole sections of it in his mind. He had simply written it off as failure without any planning, but when the essay came back with the highest grade in his class, he had to rethink his opinions. He convinced himself that it had to be a learned skill, as genetic inheritance was out of the question (Jeffery was a very organized and painstaking student).

He decided to take Andrew's advice, and spend a day by himself. It would probably do him good, and give him time to return to his hobbies. Ironically however, his only hobbies did not appeal to him at the moment, and he found himself without a thing to do. Without stimulation, his thoughts went back to worry, wondering whether his team could work out the problem. Eventually, by about noon, he simply gave up and went in to work. Repeat routine: Get up, go to building, get coffee, work on suit, program suit, piece together suit, go home, pass out.

The daily activities had become so expected and regular. It just wouldn't change. He could not make his suit good enough not matter how hard he worked. It was too complicated to manually switch suit modes, and it would be too unexpected to work with if it changed automatically. His head was swimming with ideas and unable to process them fast enough to make sense. Too much pressure… (As you may already know, stress can make people do amazing things. Only one other thing can cause the same effect. It's called a writer's convenience. This event happens to be both at once)… and then, from the constant routine and repeated method, came a new idea.

It stood out like a work of pure genius, of Da-Vinci-like beauty. And, incredibly enough, he had been performing it day after day, and never thought to use it: programmed routine recognition. The different modes of the nanosuit were only meant to be used for certain purposes. It would greatly speed up the conversion rate and smoothness of use if the actions (or movements associated with the actions, rather) were programmed into the nanomachines AI to begin with. That way, no one would even have to consider changing the nanosuit's current mode, and could rush in and perform the necessary actions. It was so simple, and he had only just thought of it.

Coming in to work the next morning, Jeffery had a new enthusiasm. He finally felt content with how his project would turn out, and was confident in his abilities again. As he strutted into his office, the workers around him clamored with questions, which he answered quickly. He then headed over to his chief programmer, a man by the name of Graham, and presented his idea.

Graham liked the premise in general, and said he could easily program it, given the time, but needed something a bit… out of reach. In order to assign the motions, he would need someone to get inside the nanosuit, and do all of the base testing themselves, while the actions were recorded. While this would create great jumps ahead in progress, it was also very dangerous as it had not yet been confirmed for human testing. Another obstacle. But, feeling so sure, and not willing to give up his last chance at satisfaction, Barnes gave no thought to the consequences, and volunteered near instantly.

"Are you sure?" Graham asked him.

"Let me tell you something. If I can't make this thing work, then I deserve to at least try to. As soon as possible, get me in that thing."

"Look, I support your opinion and everything, but this just won't work right now. There's just too much doubt over human performance right now that I--"

"Doubt cannot be scientifically confirmed. And besides, if anything happens, there's a chance we'll be given more time in order to fix it."

"That's a very good point you have, but it would make no sense. I'll do it, but I'm concerned over the results."

"That's why I need you in here, recording, and not in the suit, testing. I just manage the work."

And like that, he had made a choice. A choice that would most likely change the course of an entire war, and possibly the course of history after that. To take the risk, to take any risk, in fact, was to risk not succeeding, and it was still doubtful whether he would succeed, even if doubt could not be confirmed.

End of Chapter 1


	2. Creating Functions

Chapter 2: Creating Functions

Standing in front of the nanosuit, just 20 minutes or so after his volunteering to test it, Jeffery couldn't help but be honored. Not only was he about to step into one of the most advanced pieces of technology ever devised by man, he would be allowed to screw around with it, solely to find flaws and other notable details. It was a wonderful feeling, but still a bit chilling. To describe it well, it was like being in line for a roller coaster. You knew you would be scared to death, and be having the time of your life while doing so.

The room he was in was nearly a perfect cube. With high ceilings, wide open area, monochromatic colors, and a tiled sheen, it was a completely symmetrical chamber. In each corner and on the center of each wall, was a small, nearly unnoticeable camera. This fed live footage to the monitors on the other side of the wall. There was also a video recording software programmed into the visor of his nanosuit, so everything in his line of sight would be recorded. It also had a thermal tracking system, to mark anything with sufficient heat onto a radar and track it's movements.

"Alright, Jeff, the suit should open up automatically. Get in quickly, before it closes," crackled an intercom speaker.

Almost on cue, there was a hissing sound. The center of the suit split down the middle.

The gap in the chest split and continued down the arms and legs. The lines split again to accommodate his fingers. Hesitating a bit, Jeffery spun around and backed up into the suit, leaning backwards slightly as he did so. His form became completely surrounded by the metallic fabrics. Another hissing sound indicated that the split was closing again.

From inside the suit, there seemed to be no temperature, and even though he knew it was skintight, Jeffery felt nothing as the suit pressurized itself and gripped his flesh. A scratchy sound merged from a speaker next to his ear.

"Please place mask on."

Jeffery quickly grabbed his oxygen mask and it cliked into place, over his mouth and nose. He pulled down his visor.

"Oxygen flow: Initiated."

Projected over his visor, a list of statistics and performance measures scrolled over each other. After the systems check was finished, the suit functions powered on.

"Maximum Armor."

An odd feeling of power rushed over him. He felt like he had more energy, as if his suit was supplying his body with pure andrenaline. He took a step forward, to check his balance. When his foot came down, tiny gears shifted and his foot twisted slightly, to create an artificial center of gravity. He tried running. Each step felt perfectly executed, and he felt like a shotgun blast couldn't stop him. And to think, the extreme conditioning hadn't even started yet.

A voice crackled from his earpiece: "Alright Jeffery, first, we just want to record the movements. After that we'll do the human testing. Over."

"Alright then."

"First, I need you to run forward. With purpose."

"Can do."

Barreling forward at full speed, Jeffery easily crossed the room within a few seconds. A small gauge in the corner of his vision noted that his current peak was 20 mph, with his nano-augmentation.

On the other side of the white wall, Andrew and his team were switching between admiring their creation, and observing a small screen on the table. On it was a stick figure with red marked joints and significant body parts, resembling a motion capture feed. Well, to say "resembling" is a misnomer, because it essentially was a motion capture feed. Andrew bent down over a microphone jutting out from the surface of the table.

"Alright. Nice work. We have a nice recording here. Now I want you to jump. Just lightly, so the prerequisite will be easy to reach without exertion. And make sure you do it again in a couple of different directions."

"Anything else?... Good." Jeffery did what was asked of him.

More tasks were assigned and performed without question, and eventually they were all completed. Now it was time for some real fun. It was time to test the suit functions. What was once a sub-par human specimen would now become the fantasy of an Olympian.

"Maximum Strength." The suit uttered robotically. Jeffery's muscles tensed for a moment, as the nanomachines worked to bolster his muscle tissue. He puffed out his chest and breathed deeply.

"Come on. Let's have some fun," he smirked, "I need some exercise."

"Believe me, we have a helluva workout lined up for you." crackled Andrew's voice from the earpiece. "First, just make a fist, and hold up your arm."

A thick, wide portion of the floor in front of him rose up. Behind, more came up, and they soon looked like a trail of dominos, ready to be knocked over.

"Alright, now just close your eyes, and move it forward."

Jeffery swung his arm forward, and his fist made a good sized dent in the tile, exposing the concrete behind it. After about three seconds, the portion fell over and broke into five pieces.

"Now keep going."

The second punch was less hesitant, knowing there would be little to stop it. And with the momentum, each raised block was lighter (relatively) than the last. At the end of the set, the final block was ripped out of the floor and slid all the way to the wall. Out of his earpiece, Jeffery heard a faint voice, probably one of the programmers making a joke: _say hello to the 21st century steroid_.

The suit was almost out of energy, and Jeffery waited few seconds while it charged up again. He noted that the weight of the suit was adjusting his posture as the artificial strength wore out, and his physical power had to take over. As the energy filled up, his spine straightened out to a un-curved rod. He was ready again.

"What else do you have?"

"Do you need directions to the weight room?" remarked Andrew.

"I could use a treadmill, maybe bust my quads a bit."

"Coming right up. 40 mph be all right?"

"Make it happen".

"Maximum Speed."

While the scientists were having their fun, halfway across the world, outside a small camp near Iwon, a Korean private was running for his life. A few metres behind him, a small squad of American Reconnaisence Troops were giving chase. About a mile ahead of him, he saw lights from his camp, where he had been deployed from almost two hours ago, to gather information. Now he had to get back alive to report his findings.

Only a few moments ago, he was just outside an outpost made by the americans, and listening to the radio chatter from their signal. Through the static, he could make out some conversation about a suit, and some new operations being set up. But before he could get anymore, a patrol stumbled across him, and fired in his direction. Realizing his position was revealed, it was all he could do to get away before he was killed.

Back to the present, he was closing in, and now could see the details of his camp: the tents, a few Light Terrain Vehicles, and a makeshift airfield in the clearing. Closer than ever, he devoted all his energy, and every muscle in his body, brushing aside foliage and hurdling over boulders. Almost there. Nearly safe.

Sweat trailing off his face, he forced himself through the line of flora, and burst into the clearing, his momentum easily carrying him forward into the perimeter of the camp. He kept running, towards the largest tent.

As the americans followed, the were quickly felled by Shi-ten machine gun fire, from a tiny hut made of tin plates. Not one survived, and the calm silence was broken by the angry sound of bullets. Inside the command tent, the private ran up to his commanding officer, and Corporal facing the backwall, which was cover by a jungle of cables and monitors, seemingly low-tech because of the hasty build. In their own language, the following conversation was had.

"Sir, the americans are building something very big. They seem very sure of it to win the war."

"That might explain their slow retreat, and also movement to build up around Pyongyang. It seems as if they intend to invade the capitol to gain an advantage. But they don't have the manpower out here to do that."

"It may be a new munition, sir. That would be enough to take out Pyongyang."

"But that does not seem to be their goal. They always fight like insects, moving forward and swallowing everything up. It does not seem logical that they would blow up a city."

"I also heard mentions of some sort of suit, sir."

"Really? What kind of suit? A shipment of kevlar, or body armor?"

"No, just a suit. Actually, the referred to it as 'the suit'."

"Did they say where it was coming from, or how it would be shipped?"

"No, sir. I don't think it's even finished."

"Where was the signal coming from?"

"Somewhere on the eastern coast of the US, around the middle."\

"Can you punch up an exact coordinate?"

"I might be able to, sir. If I go back and get it, that is."

"Excellent. I'll prepare the VTOL for takeoff. Every covert trained troop better be on it. In 18 hours, we'll be there and extract whatever it is."

As the private left to glean more information, 3 words left the Corporal's mouth.

"Alea Iacta Est."

Shifting back to the U.S., the trials on the suit were nearly finished. Jeffery had spent all night following instructions as to what particular action to partake, and was beginning to feel extremely tired.

Andrew was about as tired as he was, and seemed bored as well.

"Alright. We're almost finished. I figure if we keep going, we should finish soon. Just get a good running start at that wall."

Jeffery ran towards the wall, albeit with less enthusiasm then before, and crashed straight through.

"You know what, Andrew, I don't have the energy for this anymore. I think I'm gonna head home."

"You and me both, buddy. Just step over to the port, so you can take the suit off."

"Sweet. I'm getting sweaty now."

Jeffery lumbered over to the port, the weight of his suit bearing down on him, almost too much to take. As he stepped into the port and straightened his back, the suit locked into place and he took off his oxygen mask. The suit powered off, and immediately, without it's power supporting him, and lost conciousness, nearly instantly. The suit's front opened up and he collapsed out of it. Andrew walked over to him, picking him up.

"Well, I'd say I'll be the designated driver tonight. Let's get you home."

Early the next day, Jeffery got up, feeling terrible. He checked his clock. It had been nearly 10 hours since he blacked out. He was late for work, and still couldn't muster the energy to get out of bed. Without the suit to help him in menial tasks, Jeffery could barely perform them, after his extended time inside of it. Just like, astronauts, losing muscle tissue in zero gravity, without exertion. Jeffery found this last thought amusing. A nanosuit in zero gravity. How useless.

Finally yanking himself out of bed, Jeffery realized he hadn't had a smoke in 2 days. Not that he was addicted, at any rate. He wouldn't let himself do that. But he still noted the change. He couldn't even remember where he had left the pack. Glancing out the window, he saw that it had snowed overnight. Up in the sky, a thick fogbank hung.

After a hasty dressing, a quick breakfast, and a recovery of some lost car keys, Jeffery was out in his car. As he sat down, he got a head rush, and decided to call for a taxi. It had been 30 minutes since he woke up. Crap.

After a long ride, and a brief stint in a traffic jam, Jeffery was outside the parking lot. He paid the cab driver, tipping generously since he couldn't be bothered to count the bills. He jogged across the pavement, rushed in the door, got in the elevator, 4th floor, and he was in. He went to go check with Graham about the suit's routine programming.

"Oh, man, it's going great." Graham assured him, "We've cut down conversion times by 70. And I've only programmed half the actions. That was some idea you got. We're nearly complete and ready to present."

"Good job. How's everything else holding up? Is the AI still running correctly with the new parameters?"

"Everything's running optimal."

"Excellent. I'm counting on you to finish this up, okay?"

"Count on it."

"Great."

Jeffery was starting to adjust to his old physical archetype, and walked briskly over to Andrew and his crew.

"Andrew, my friend, I think we're about finished. Everything is going perfectly."

"Ain't it good? We are sitting on top of the world."

"Higher, actually. As soon as Graham is finished, we have to a new systems check and we can present."

"Seriously? That was fast."

"I'm surprised myself. I just hope Lieutenant Strickland is impressed enough. He's a hard man to please."

"Believe me, it will."

Unbeknownst to these two colleagues, just inside the fog of the winter sky, there was a good sized aircraft, loaded with ten to twenty soldier's of the Korean People's Army, preparing to land. Specifically, it was a V-22 VTOL, named so because of it's capability to take off and land without a runway or stretch of land. As it came down, the rumble of its engines rocked cars, and as the plane twisted it's wings to land, they swiveled down, momentarily passing over an entire wall of windows and shattering them completely.

Inside the building, all the noise was creating pandemonium, and someone pulled the fire alarm, hoping for at least some kind of alert. Jeffery and Andrew were startled, and Graham suddenly ran out of the room, towards the elevator. When it opened, he was greeted by a tough, burly 5" 9' rifleman, who swung his gun around and caught him squarely in the jaw, knocking him over and forcing out some of his teeth. Andrew bolted behind one of his tables, urging Jeffery to follow. By now, the soldier was already out of the elevator, running towards them.

Through the broken windows poured a small lightly armored team of military men, clutching small pistols, spreading out and securing the area. Every engineer in the room was soon standing up straight, with a rather incendiary incentive to stay there. With the chaos finished and everyone in order, the rifleman who had beat down Graham was walking forward. He pulled off his helmet, and shook his head, to shake off some sweat.

"Hello, gentleman." He made out in accented english, "My name is Corporal San Hyang-Soon. I've come about a certain project the americans are working on."

"What project?" Andrew asked, trying to lie.

"I believe it has something to do with a suit. My intelligence man was quite vague, and I know only about some suit you've built."

"It's not a real combat suit. It's a video game controller." Jeffery insisted.

San inched close to Jeffery. He smelled like rainwater.

"Am I to believe that in a time of international war, you would be whiling away millions of dollars a day for a suit that is used for purposes of entertainment? Aegri Somnia! What is it's purpose? Combat? Sabotage? Scuba? You will tell us and we will take it. Do you understand?"

"Oh, yeah, Caesar, we understand."

"Then tell us. Better yet, _show us._ Turn it on, activate it, do whatever you need to."

"Fine. But I need someone inside to help start it." Andrew said. "Graham!"

Andrew remembered that Graham was unconcious.

"Jeffery, you can do it, right?" Jeffery realized where Andrew was going, and said "Yeah, I think so."

"Hold it!" San said. "Send one of my people in. I've been fooled before."

"Not to speak ill of your 'people', but do any of them have awards and years of experience in nanotechnology AI? I wouldn't expect it."

San was obviously suspicious of what they had in store, and ordered two of his gunmen to accompany Jeffery and make sure he wasn't planning anything. Jeffery walked through the door into the test chamber, where the suit was waiting in it's port for him. Despite the direness of the situation, Jeffery felt a pang of excitement to be able to step into it again. Andrew started the suit initiation sequence, a SOCOM barrel pressed against his ear. As it did before, the front of the suit opened up and made room for Jeffery to step inside.

"I bet you'd want one of these, wouldn't you? I'm the only one who can build it. So if I were you, I'd ease up on the firearm." Andrew said.

"낮은총합니다." San said to his soldier. "Now, make it work."

Jeffery turned around, so he faced the two soldiers, and backed into the suit. _Hello baby, I missed you, _he thought. The nanosuit quickly closed around him, and sealed up. The the suit powered on.

"Maximum Armor."

In that split second Jeffery weighed his options.

_What's around me, guards, concrete. Bulletproof glass between me and everyone else, need to break it. Need to not die, need to keep everyone else alive. Need to do it now. _

"Maximum Strength."

Without a second thought, Jeffery grabbed the first man by the throat and shoved him into the wall, easily seperating his vertebrae and leaving an indentation in the wall. The second one started firing at him, and he let out a groan of pain from the impact. Running straight at him, he picked him up, and threw him through the glass pane, shattering it and landing him on top of San. He jumped through the shattered window and pulverized one man's skull, knocking him back into a group of soldiers.By now, San was up, and grabbed the second man's pistol, which still had half a clip left. Jeffery was low on energy.

"Maximum Speed."

As San started to shoot at him, Jeffery felt time slow down around him. It was all relative of course, but he easily leaned away from the path of the bullet, where it flew by and hit a soldier, bringing him down by the shoulder. _6 down, 14 to go._ San was still firing, and he was experienced enough to count his bullets. With 1 left, he grabbed Andrew, and pressed the gun into his ribcage.

"HOLD IT! Stop right now, and crouch down."

Jeffery turned and saw that San had a hostage. He ran towards him at full speed, hoping he wouldn't fire. San squeezed the trigger, almost enough to shoot.

"Ah, ah, ah. Do as I say, or he will die."

Not knowing what to do, Jeffery took his only choice. He got down on his hands and knees, and put his head down.

"Take the other ones. Leave him. He's too dangerous until we get our own nanosuit. Destroy the computer. I don't want them building more. Best to leave them without plans."

Jeffery looked up and saw each soldier (each one that was still alive) walking towards the broken window, each with their own engineer. Outside the window, the VTOL was taking off, and hovering just outside. _Goddammit. There must be something_. Everyone was now on the VTOL, and it was ascending, bringing up the ramp. He got up, and on an impulse ran forward at full speed. As he hit the edge, he jumped.

"Maximum Strength"

His momentum combined with his nano-augmentation catapaulted him over the gap and onto the back of the VTOL. He pounded on the metal to make a handhold, and used his spare hand to try to bash through the hull. The craft had now ascended to almost 70 feet off the ground. He made a small sized hole, and looked through it, only to find 7 rifles pointed at his head. The simultaneous impact onto his head snapped his neck back, and he soon found himself falling, nearly 300 feet down. He righted himself and shifted his weight, desperately trying to position himself over something soft, but the weight of the suit was too great for that.

"Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit,!"

The speedometer showed he had reached terminal velocity, and his chances were getting slimmer. 30 ft from the ground, he pulled into a fetal position and braced for impact.

"Maximum Armor."

Coming down like a meteor, he crashed down onto a flatbed truck, sliding along the back and crashing through the cab, coming to rest against the dashboard. As his senses came back to him, he felt a rising motion in his stomach, like on a dropping roller-coaster. He realized his impact on the back of the truck had forced it to pivot upwards, and it was now coming down again. The front tires smashed down onto the pavement, cracking it. With only a glimmer of consciousness left, Jeffery forced open the mangled door, fell out onto the road, and blacked out, Army marked trucks parking in front of him.

Back inside the VTOL, Corporal Hyang-Soon uttered, "Plene Indignus Pro Bellum."

End of Chapter 2


	3. Short Story Intermission: Explanations

Chapter 2-3 Intermission:

_I realize I should have done this from the start, and explained how the nanosuit is supposed to work, but I was just writing at that point. Sorry for the inconvenience. Most of my concepts of nanotechnology come from reading _Prey_ by _Michael Crichton_, rest in peace, so if you read that, you'll pretty much know a lot of this already. You can just skip this bit._

The prototype U.S. Military Nano-Muscle Suit, or nanosuit, is a highly advanced suit of armor, designed to increase the performance of average soldiers while in the field with minimal training. This is accomplished through physical augmentation of bodily processes using nanoscopic machines. The assigned functions of the machines is to speed up body processes (specifically reflexes, running, durability, and various other physical exertions) by forcefully increasing the productivity of the cells, and at the same time, accomplishing tasks those cells would be doing by themselves. The machines have no AI, only programmed executables that run only after a certain code is recognized. This prevents Artificial Evolution, known commonly as Rampancy, and keeps the suit classified as a piece of equipment.

The code to change the current executable is activated by the gloves of the nanosuit, where, housed in the fingers, is a small piece of copper. An extremely small charge is reserved for it from the nanosuits rechargeable reservoir. When the copper is pressed against another piece of copper, located on the thumb, it creates a circuit (The circuit can also be accomplished through most other conductive metals, if for whatever reason needed). By tapping between 1 and 3 times, a code to change functions is sent to the entire body. This code goes through the body not through a large scale wireless network, but rather through the machines themselves. Each one has an extremely limited range of wireless communication, just enough to be able to communicate with others in its immediate vicinity. By sending the code, a pyramid-scheme-like effect is accomplished, with the rate of the code's travel increasing exponentially. Keep in mind this happens within roughly 5 seconds.

The 3 functions are classified as Armor, Strength, and Speed. As Armor does not specifically interact with the body, and uses the least processing speed, it uses less energy, making it the standard mode to switch to when power needs to recharge. Armor has the machines arrange themselves in such a way as to become a stronger, more ductile form of Kevlar, the main bulletproof protection material. If impact is predicted, then the machines automatically begin to concentrate on estimated place of connection. If machines are pushed aside by higher ordnance than expected, then they are also quick to reform.

Speed, the second function, increases reaction speed, running speed, balance, and all other forms of physical movement, from punching to typing. By attaching nanomachines to blood vessels, more oxygen can get to moving muscles, and much faster. Other machines then embed themselves in muscles to help manually contract, flex or rotate muscles and joints more quickly.

Strength, is the last function. The nanomachines split into 2 groups, equal in size. 1 group manually expands and contracts muscles, like in speed mode, but instead of increasing the movement rate of the muscles, the focus of Strength is to make the movement more forceful, rather than quicker. It strengthens all muscles at once, but makes the more exerted ones stronger. This means if a person attempts to jump in Strength mode while carrying a heavy load with both hands, the peak of the jump is notably lower than that of one without a weight to carry.

The suit receives it's energy from a small rechargable power source housed in the back. It is connected to both solar and thermal panels. Though it will charge more slowly in cold, cloudy environments, it will charge nonetheless. A separate battery is employed for breathing apparatus and goggle displays.

The goggle displays are simple, with various functions such as time, tempurature, GPS tracking and surveillance, energy levels and damaged nanomachine percentages. There is also basic night and thermal vision.

The Nano-Muscle Suit will revolutionize modern warfare, and is set to be released for military use on February 10th, 2003.

_Sorry this took so long. Enjoy the rest._


	4. Adolescence

Chapter 3: Adolescence

"_What the fuck is going on?" _Jeffery thought to himself. A hissing sound was all he could hear, and even that quickly faded from detection. On the brink of vomiting, he forced his eyes open. His senses were numbed and he was without the slightest idea where he was, and how long he had been out.

"_Where am I? I've got to get the hell out of here." _He felt that he was lying in a gurney, and a low quality one at that. It creaked every time he moved. His senses were still foggy, and he was using all his willpower to try to focus on getting up. He rolled over, and fell onto the floor. Fighting to control his motor impulses, he pushed himself up, and had to lean against the wall to stay upright.

"_Well, now I know my limit._" He thought to himself. He walked pushed himself out the door, too exhausted to consider what might happen. He immediately found himself face to face with a man who appeared to be a surgeon. He froze for a second, and fainted back from shock. He had been carrying a surgical saw, which clanged to the ground. A shuffling of feet responded to the sound. Jeffery tilted his head, to see a few doctors peering out of their patient's rooms, and gawking at him. After a moment of silence, they bolted back inside.

"It's awake!"

"It killed Cranford!"

"Hide!"

Jeffery couldn't fathom what was happening, and as he whipped his head around to check his surroundings, he caught a glimpse of himself in the saw. His face mask and goggles were still on. He had to admit he looked like some sort of robot. The surgeon must've been preparing to dissect him. Well, that wouldn't be happening.

Running down the hall, he slid to a stop at the corner. Looking to his right, there was a sign that gave directions to a staircase. He started running again. He easily crashed through the wooden door. The fire alarm went off, and he realized it was an emergency exit. He ran all the way down the stairs and left a pair of footprints in the concrete at the bottom of them when he jumped down. Knocking the door down, he saw a bald man in front of him, and stopped as a reflex, inches in front of him. The man spoke out.

"You're tough to keep down. I thought this would happen."

The man held out his hand.

"I am Lieutenant Strickland of the United States Marine Corps, and you have a bit of explaining to do. Your name please?"

***

A half-hour later, Jeffery couldn't believe where he was. After a short drive, a few security checks, and a lot of suspicion over his suit, he and Strickland were inside the National Security Agency Headquarters. As he walked down the hall with him, there was an incomprehensible chatter around him, on topics of location, predictions of targets, recent intelligence acquired, transmission, and communications. Insane amounts of information being passed around and processed for the tiniest bit of meaning, it was like a flesh-and-blood internet. Strickland beckoned for Jeffery to keep up.

"So you say the man's name was San?"

"Yes, San Hyang-Soon." Jeffery told him, still unable to focus completely. "He said he was a corporal. Does that mean anything?"

"It means we're in deep shit. And he has enough reason to do an operation like this. He never does anything on an impulse, as far as we can tell. It's really just logic, since he almost never fails. He's been slowly pushing back around Cambodia, but then, he moved up, somewhere in North Korea. After that h... why don't you take the suit off?"

"What?"

"The suit you're wearing, why are you still in it?"

"I can't get it off. We had a program we had to run from a terminal when the suit was in a port, to be able to open it and take it off. The best I can do is remove the oxygen mask and the goggles. Nothing else."

"I can't imagine what it's like having to be inside one of those things. I'd get claustrophobic and start going nuts."

"Believe me, you have to get used to it quickly. So, where are going?"

"Right now, we're going to overlook the security footage to see what we more we can find out. As I said before, we're already trying to find him, so you're lucky you're giving us some more to work with. It's the good side to--"

Jeffery jumped to attention, believing this to be an insult.

"What good side? Are you kidding? There is no good side. Several of the people on that team I am very good friends with, and no doubt they're just wasting away somewhere in South Korea or wherever the fuck, and in addition to that, my efforts are now worthless, destroying the long hours I spent wasting my life to make this thing that I am currently stuck inside of work! And now I can't even fucking get out of it. I say again, what good side is there?"

For a second, everyone froze, shocked out of their current tasks by Jeffery's outburst.

"That was some crazy mood swing. I thought you'd be bit freaked, but that surprised me. You have to understand that you are actually very fortunate, even considering the situation. We can still devote full attention to finding them, and I can tell you this is cause enough for an invasion. But first, we need to know where they came from."

"Christ. It just strikes me as impossible that everything happened at once."

"The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Or, in your case, the farther. You should've seen that flatbed you hit. Totaled."

Before Jeffery could respond, they had reached another door. Strickland opened up the door to show a few people inside a medium sized room. It seemed there was an awful fuss going around.

"What's up?" Strickland asked them.

"We think there's some-- what the fuck is that?"

"That's Jeffery Barnes, I'll explain later. Now what's going on?"

"Nothing, we think there's a bit of a messup. Looking at the footage from the cameras, it seems that they used a V-22. They can't hide something that big while it's in the country, so it must be from overseas. But it's not built to go that far. Then, a few people further south, near Jacksonville, reported seeing a military aircraft pass overhead, only 9 hours later. So, it's obviously a fast mover. But it's just not possible, in all sorts of senses, for it to go that far. If it is Hyang-Soon, then he can't be in Korea."

"Did the outpost say anything else? Or is that it?"

"Nothing."

"Well, that's simple. They're not the same plane."

"But they have to be. There's no other VTOL of that make that's even been glimpsed anywhere in Asia. It just doesn't make any sense."

Bored of waiting for an answer, Jeffery spoke up.

"What if there's a halfway point? That way the plane could be landed, and a different mode of transport could be taken the rest of the way. Or the plane could be refueled."

"You think that never crossed our minds? Of course it did. That's an obvious solution. The problem is that they still can't be the same plane. I don't think you understand how short range it is. This plane is not meant to cross an ocean. It will get you between aircraft carriers, and no more."

Jeffery grinned.

"You just solved your own problem. He flies out, he lands on one of these huge ships, and then either refuels or just takes the ship the rest of the way."

One of the men looked at him, with a sarcastic expression.

"And what ship would they land on that's within range? Don't you think we would have noticed that? We said before that just the plane was too massive, and you think there's a fucking ship? Anything like would have been blown out of the water as soon as it came within a hundred miles of the coast."

Strickland spoke up. "Then our problem is still unsolved."

"What about a stealth ship?"

"What?"

"A stealth ship. You know, no right angles, radar goes right over it?"

Jeffery was met with unagreeing faces.

"You didn't see 'Tomorrow Never Dies'? I liked the idea. No right angles at all, so radar bounces off of it. If it's even noticed it looks smaller than a submarine periscope."

"Can they do that?", a quiet voice inquired.

"Hell, yeah. The VTOL, or whatever you call it, was irregular in shape. I'm sure it also has some sort of surveillance jamming device on board too."

This still solved no problems, of course. But it gave way to a simple solution.

"Boys, call up the Naval Base." Strickland said. "We need a ship ready, with a small recon boat onboard."

"So we're going to look for it?" Jeffery inquired, hopefully.

"Doesn't seem to be another way."

***

"What?" asked Jeffery, having been denied permission to accompany the rescue squad.

"I'm sorry." Strickland said, with his head tilted down. "I don't make the calls, but the boys upstairs want you to stay in the US. The suit is too valuable."

"Bullshit. And the engineers aren't?"

"Hey, like I said, that's a valuable costume you're in. As much at it would help, it's too much of a risk. As much as you might think it, you're not invincible. And if you die, I'm in deep shit with my superiors."

"So what if I die? All they want is the suit."

"And the man who tested it. You're going to be staying under U.S. Federal possession. Until we get that thing off you, you belong to the U.S. Government."

As Strickland turned and walked away towards the boat, and climbed on, Jeffery called back to him.

"You know this means I'll have to sneak on!"

Without turning, Strickland retorted back:

"Now I can't say I didn't know about it!"

Jeffery could only watch, as the other Marines loaded assorted materials onto the ship. Scanning the hull, he noted no possible entry except through the one pressure door. That was out of the question. Too many people. He walked to the edge of the concrete dock, and looked down, at the bow. Still nothing. _There has to be some way up. An emergency hatch or something. _Nothing.

Seeing no way to board the interior, he then chose to consider a way to get on the deck. Looking at huge cargo door, he had a sudden flash of memory, clinging to the VTOL. Considering his chances of actually scaling the side of the ship, and comparing them with his chances of falling in the ocean, it was a slim chance. But, then again, so was surviving a 300 foot fall. Seeing no other options, Jeffery fastened his oxygen mask. He would be needing it.

Obviously, there were too many people to get in the water here. Walking further down the side of the ship, behind a large cargo crate. Stopping for a second to wonder why such a huge load would be needed, he reasoned the ship was also being used for other purposes. Not letting his mind dwell on it, he jumped into the ocean.

"Maximum Strength." The suit uttered.

Pushing his hand against the inertia of the water, he gripped the metal, and tightening his fist, it slowly gave way and crumpled into a handhold. Taking a deep breath, he brought his other hand up, and repeated. The scrape of metal sent a shiver down his spine, and he feared the noise would give him away. But, it was drowned out by the start of the engines. _No turning back now,_ he thought to himself.

Climbing slowly up the back, and eventually emerging from the water, Jeffery could see the skies becoming cloudier, showing they were moving quickly out to sea. Forcing himself up, the suit making it just possible to haul himself up. At the top, and out of breath, he threw one hand over the edge of the deck. Using what was left of the suit's energy, he pulled his body up, and lay for a moment, letting the suit recharge, and trying not to move.

Once fully charged, he rolled over, and ran to the nearest wall. _Here's where those hours on Splinter Cell pay off._ He had no plan, but knew from instinct that what he needed was somewhere he could both wait, and blend in. The suits texture would let him wait anywhere with a metallic surface, so most of the ship would suffice. But, for extra security, he needed cover. Down in the cargo hold would work for the time being.

Now, he just had to get there. Time was wasting.


End file.
